Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes To Dust

Thóra silently prayed no fish would bite her hook, and tried to avoid letting her line sink all the way to the bottom as Paddi had recommended. This was difficult, as she had no idea where the line was located. For all she knew she could be scraping the bottom in the middle of a hungry school of fish. She looked back at Heimaey, where the new lava could be seen clearly. ‘That was quite a disaster,’ she said, directing her statement at Paddi.

‘You mean the eruption?’ he asked. His rod jerked slightly and he started to reel the line in.

‘Yes,’ said Thóra, sweeping her rod clumsily over her shoulder and back out over the gunwale as Paddi had shown them. ‘Did you live here back then?’

‘Yes, I’ve lived here all my life,’ he answered, still reeling his line in. ‘It’s been great.’

Thóra didn’t understand what he meant by this. ‘What did you take with you from home, in the evacuation?’ she asked curiously. What would a man like this choose to save? A fishing rod, or his favourite bottle of whisky?

‘I took my wife,’ replied Paddi, tautening his line. ‘And it was a good thing I did, because my house was one of the first to disappear beneath the lava. I would have had a tough time finding a new wife.’ He leaned into his line and turned the reel with enormous effort. Up came two haddock. Paddi removed the hooks and threw the wriggling fish into the barrel. Thóra and Bella gawped at it as a knocking sound came from inside. They had both expected the man to knock the fish out, not let them die slowly. Paddi wiped his hands on a stained towel tied to the ladder rail and turned back to the women, who were still staring dumbly at the barrel. ‘You need to grip tighter,’ he said, and came over to them, whereupon they immediately made a feeble effort to perform correctly. ‘You don’t want me to do it all for you.’

Bella let out a shout as her line suddenly tautened. ‘I’ve got one!’ she yelled, as if she wanted the occupants of the hunting shed to hear them, hundreds of feet above. ‘What do I do?’ The old man went over to her. He was so bow- legged that the fish barrel would have fitted easily between his knees. He helped Bella reel in her catch; a redfish, so small it would barely make a canape. The seagulls cried out, excited now that something was happening.

‘Can’t we throw it back?’implored Thóra. ‘It’s so tiny, poor thing.’ She pitied the poor fish, which dangled from the hook. ‘Is the wound too deep for it to live?’

‘No, no,’ said Paddi calmly, putting on rubber gloves. Thóra recalled that redfish could be poisonous if they came into contact with an open wound. She had no idea where this poison was to be found on the fish, but judging by how carefully Paddi freed it from the hook, it must have been on its skin. He lifted the gaping fish.‘Should I let it go? It’s your call.’

Thóra and Bella nodded in unison and watched happily as Paddi threw the fish overboard, but instead of darting away it just floated on its side. It seemed to be trying to swim with the fin that was poking up. ‘Why won’t it swim off?’ asked Thóra, trying to remain calm. ‘Is it more injured than you thought?’ She was furious at the man.

‘Oh,’ said Paddi, unconcerned.‘It’s a deep-sea fish, and it fills with air when it comes up from the bottom. It can’t sink. I forgot about that. It would have been better off in the barrel.’

‘How could you not remember that?’ cried Thóra.

‘I’m not in the habit of releasing my catch, dear lady,’ said Paddi grumpily. Thóra wasn’t sure whether he was irritated with her or with himself.

The seagulls surrounded the wretched fish, which still lay half submerged on its side, trying to swim with the fin that was above the water. They drew nearer. Thóra couldn’t help watching, though she had no desire to witness what happened next. She felt uncomfortable, and was beginning to regret having had a drink in the bar. Suddenly the movement of the boat and the smell of the catch in the barrel were making her nauseous. She closed her eyes and breathed through her mouth, which helped a little. Her queasiness erupted again when she opened her eyes and saw that the fish was still locked in a drawn-out but hopeless fight to the death. One of the seagulls stretched out its neck and pecked at the fish’s side. The three of them stood side by side on the boat, watching silently.

Thóra wished that either she’d kept her mouth shut when the fish was reeled in or she had a net to fish it out again. Suddenly all the seagulls flocked around the redfish in a feeding frenzy. The fish could be seen twitching a few times before it finally died, much to Thóra’s relief. When the seagulls flew up again, full and contented, there was almost nothing left of it. Paddi turned to look at Thóra and Bella, noting their identical expressions of horror.‘Are you sure you like deep-sea fishing?’ he asked. ‘We could easily change this into a sightseeing trip if you’d rather.’

‘Maybe that would be best,’replied Thóra, and Bella nodded. ‘We’re not going to make good fishermen.’ She smiled at him. ‘Why don’t you take us on a short tour? The reason I booked a trip was actually to ask you about a couple of things – we were told that you’re the man who knows the most about people in the Islands.’

‘I see,’ said Paddi, taken aback.‘Why didn’t you just say so?’

‘I didn’t want to deprive you of a tour and I thought we could combine the two, fishing and conversation.’

They made their way to the upper deck, which had the best view of the magnificent scenery, and Paddi set sail again.‘I expect you’ve heard about the bodies in the basement,’said Thóra. ‘I’m working for Markus Magnusson, who has unfortunately been linked to the case.’

‘I have heard,’ said Paddi, looking straight ahead. ‘This isn’t a big town and when something like this hits the headlines everyone follows the story, me included.’

‘So you may also know that Alda Thórgeirsdóttir seems to have been murdered, and that Markus is a suspect?’

The old man snorted loudly. ‘The police in Reykjavik know nothing if they think Markus harmed a hair on Alda’s head,’ he exclaimed. ‘That boy used to think the sun shone out of her in the old days, and although teenage crushes aren’t the kind of thing I’d usually notice, everyone knew about it. With the possible exception of Alda. Even Gudni says the arrest is ridiculous, and he’s made a few blunders in his career.’

Although Thóra was pleased to hear Paddi’s opinion of the case, she wasn’t looking for witnesses to Markus’s character. ‘Have you any thoughts on who the men in the basement might have been?’ she said. ‘It’s fairly clear that they were foreigners.’

‘Yes, Brits, I believe,’ said Paddi. Obviously he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said news spread quickly in the Islands. ‘There were no Brits here the night of the eruption, if that’s your question.’

‘What about shortly before that?’asked Thóra. ‘Anyone who could have disappeared, but who people thought had simply gone away? When someone disappears, people don’t automatically assume they’ve been killed. Especially not a group of men.’

‘There were several foreigners in the Islands about a week before the volcano blew,’ he said. ‘But they were gone before it went up. Long gone.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Thóra. ‘Is it possible they didn’t go far, maybe just down into the basement on Sudurvegur Street?’

‘No, no,’ said Paddi, steering towards a gannet that had taken off from the water as they approached. ‘I watched them sail away. They were a bunch of numbskulls. They sailed out of the harbour in pretty bad weather. Their old tub was a bit beaten up, and I thought they should have repaired it before continuing their journey. So I kept an eye on them. But they definitely made it out.’